It is well known that fast food restaurants are significantly different from previous restaurant systems in floorplan layout, in segregation of operations, and in flow of work. The now-famous McDonald brothers invented the Speedee system of fast-food production. Prior the this system, restaurants were capable of making individual food items quickly with the superior skills of a single chef. These short order cooks are still in high demand outside of the fast food industry. The fast food method of food production eliminated the need for a highly skilled person with multiple abilities. The fast food industry requires many minimally trained persons capable of performing a single function over and over again in a segregated and specific area to facilitate quick receipt of inputs to the area (orders, food materials for the local operation, partly formed menu items, fully assembled menu items requiring wrapping, etc.) and equally quick transmission of outputs from the area (partly formed menu items, fully assembled menu items requiring wrapping, wrapped food items, wrapped food items placed in bags, boxes or trays for delivery to a customer, etc.).
In short, the fast food system generally conducts business to induce a customer to approach a counter or drive through portion where an order is placed, have the food order transmitted to a preparation and assembly area where the food is prepared and assembled, have completed food items wrapped individually, have the wrapped food items placed on a tray, in a bag or in a box, and then have the contained food items delivered to a customer in exchange for payment. With very specific exceptions, the layout of the fast food restaurant does not allow for substantial accumulation of partially or fully assembled menu items. Preparation and customer order pick up areas are minimized in favor of providing more floor space to other uses. Many fast food restaurants use a location between the customer pick up areas and the preparation areas for highly ordered storage of wrapped menu items that can be taken, one or more at a time, by persons assembling an order for a customer. However, space for gathering the wrapped menu items into a bag or box or onto a tray is very limited and there is tremendous pressure to conduct the assembly of an order and high speed to improve throughput and overall efficiency of the operation.
With the pressure to assemble at high speed comes the certainty that mistakes are made in collection of menu items for fast food orders. The overall speed and inability to concentrate on a single order by order assembly personnel typically is a disincentive for a customer to return to have an order corrected with the ordered item. If a drive through order contains the wrong items, a customer cannot typically take time to park, return to the indoor order counter, and get the attention of staff to correct the order. The effect of this disincentivizing of correction of fast food orders means that a customer is lost more easily by experiencing significant mistakes in orders. Alternately, customers become accustomed to being more aggressive and sometimes angry with staff over mistakes in orders, causing additional pressure on the already pressured personnel.
The prior art contains some efforts to address the issue of reducing mistakes made in assembly of fast food orders. U.S. Pat. No. 4,864,243 describes a box for a single or multiple food items, where food items to be contained in the box are identified to a bearer of the box by tabs removed, where each tab is specific to a food item within the box. In this way, an order assembly person is able to instantly view the tab indicators of the food order. This system suffers from a disability in that the time and motion required for pressing or activating tab indicators requires a thorough present understanding of specific order and the ability, under pressure, to perform the required activation. A further problem with this system is that personnel, under pressure, will fulfill the order's tab activation before the food items are actually placed in the box. In that circumstance, reduction in order mistakes is unlikely to be reduced over not using the patented system. Additionally, the prior art containers of the '243 patent are made for use, when manufactured, with only a fixed number of specifically identified food items. Number of menu items, food item names, and the availability of reduced price purchase of a specific set of food items change often in a typical fast food restaurant. Limited time promotions offering specific food items or promotional toys may change weekly. A system providing for bags or boxes of a food order at a fast food restaurant must have the ability to adapt to these many changes related to food items without requiring disposal of outdated order packaging, as will occur with use of the boxes of the '243 patent. Disposing of such outdated packaging increases solid waste output of an entire chain of fast food restaurants and can have a substantial effect on waste disposal.
There is a need for a fast food order assembly system where there is little opportunity for avoiding or making mistakes in steps which reduce the risk of mistakes in orders, while providing the customer with an expectation that an easily visible means will allow them to check the accuracy of the contents of their tray, bag or box as to food or menu items therein.
In addition, the steps of modern surgical procedure include a somewhat related concept of confirmation. While conducted by some of the most highly trained persons of our society, complex surgical procedures may include the use of so many instruments that errors sometimes occur in their removal from the surgical site after they have been used. A typical solution is to provide nursing or support personnel whose major role is to account for all instruments at all times. However, similar to the situation in a fast food restaurant, some procedures are fast paced and pressure is high. Different from the fast food restaurant, many times all persons are focused on saving a life instead of accounting for instruments. In such a situation, it is possible to lose track of instruments as they are being used. There is also a need for a better way of keeping track of surgical instruments as they are being used.
Current surgical practice has become widely distributed due to improvements in procedures and reduced cost and size of equipment to perform those procedures. Very important surgeries can be performed at small, outpatient surgical centers or doctors' offices. Distribution of surgical care is occurring at the same time as stricter procedures for accounting for all chargeable use of equipment, implanted devices and disposable materials used in each surgical procedure. Both government administered programs and private health insurers are requiring clear evidence of each billable item for which they are liable for payment. However, in all medical provider venues, nursing and support personnel are a substantial expense and their involvement in making sure every billable item of a surgery has been properly entered in a written log may be reduced in favor of more critical aspects of patient care. As such, a typical surgical procedure may conclude with disposables used and removed for disposal before staff have determined every disposable used. Some effort can be made to review inventory before and after a procedure to have a general idea of disposables (such as gauze, scalpels, sutures, syringes, catheters, breathing tubes or masks, valves, gowns, gloves, caps, etc.) used in the procedure, but many times only a best estimate of disposables used in a surgical procedure can be made and submitted for payment. Best estimates are often not acceptable to actually obtain payment for these disposables used in a surgical procedure. There is a need for a system by which surgical procedure disposables used in a specific procedure may be accurately accounted for at all stages of the procedure.